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The Promises and Limitations of Revolutionary Change in Bolivia: A Book Review of Evo’s Bolivia

Marc Becker

Reviewed:Evo’s Bolivia: Continuity and Change, by Linda C. Farthing and Benjamin H. Kohl. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014).Linda
Farthing and Benjamin Kohl recount in their new book on contemporary
Bolivia the story of a rural community that voted almost in its entirety
for president Evo Morales but complained that subsequently nothing had
changed. Yes, a community member acknowledged, they now had a road, a
clinic, a school, electricity, and cell phone coverage. But visa
restrictions meant that fewer tourists arrived than before Morales took
office, which reduced their income from the sale of weavings.

This
story is representative of a theme of promises and limitations of
revolutionary change that runs through the aptly named book Evo's Bolivia: Continuity and Change.
While some scholars such as Jeffery Webber are highly critical of the
shortcomings of the Morales administration and others such as Federico
Fuentes ardently defend the government,
Farthing and Kohl attempt to balance the gains of the Morales
administration with the restrictions of making the necessary profound
changes to society. They conclude that over the short term realizing the
long-term objections of radicalized social movements remains difficult.
Nevertheless, they argue, “the chaotic and often contradictory Morales
administration” is definitely preferable to “a return to business as
usual under global neoliberalism” (161).

Farthing
and Kohl do not hesitate to acknowledge the achievements of the Morales
administration, nor do they shy away from criticizing the failures of
the government. A list of the major achievements indeed are impressive: a
new constitution, a significant redistribution of land, poverty
reduction, education reform, literacy campaigns, expansion of medical
services, industrialization, and environmental legislation.

At
the same time, government failures have led to growing critical voices
on the left complaining of a concentration of power in the hands of a
few leaders, corruption, and a failure to break from an extractive
economy.

The
issue of continuing reliance on the logic of an extractive economy
carries a particular political currency in Bolivia. In his classic work Open Veins of Latin America,
Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano employs the image of the
exploitation of the incredibly rich silver veins in Potosí draining the
wealth out of the country. The result is the familiar resource curse,
with a colony such as Bolivia with the richest natural resources in the
world becoming the poorest South American country. Capitalism excels at
under-developing peripheral economies.

Farthing
and Kohl argue, as many others have, that it simply is not possible to
break from “five hundred years of an extraction-based economy in under a
decade” (159). While everyone acknowledges that profound
transformations are exceedingly difficult, labor leaders such as the
late activist Domitila Barrios de Chungara and Aymara leaders such as
Felipe Quispe question whether the government is even attempting to
engage in fundamental structural changes that would move the country
away from the logic of neoliberalism. The face of the government has
changed, these critics charge, but the behavior and mechanisms of
managing the state has remained the same.

What
a post-extractive government would look like remains a highly
contentious issue. Bolivia’s Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca has
talked about how a capitalist economy is based on “living well” through
material accumulation, but counterpoised to this is an Indigenous
alternative of “living better” that responds to a different logic. His
proposal has led to much talk in recent years of the “buen vivir” or
“vivir bien,” with its linguistic counterparts “suma qamaña” in Aymara
and “sumaj kausay” in Quechua.

Farthing
and Kohl devote an entire chapter to the topic of buen vivir, but what
this cosmological shift would look like remains unclear. Farthing and
Kohl frame the issue in terms of wealth transfers and increased access
to education and health. Some people talk about the buen vivir in terms
not unlike standard discussions of sustainable development, and others
treat it as a synonym for socialism.

Some
Indigenous critics charge that both capitalism and socialism are
predicated on the values of modernization that require the exhaustion of
natural resources. In Bolivia, these debates most visibly came to the
surface with the government proposal to build a road through the Isiboro
Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS). What difference
does it make, these critics charge, to have a socialist government if
the end result is the same: the destruction of the planet in pursuit of
economic growth.

Other
than for some fringe elements and intellectuals sitting comfortably in
their ivory towers, few people want to return to a primitive existence
or voluntarily give up the benefits of modernity. Happiness in and of
itself is not a sufficient replacement for material comforts. Slogans
and vague ideas of decolonization are no replacement for the
implementation of substantive policies that address these pressing
issues.

How
to engage in a fundamental transformation of an economy without
triggering disruptions and conservative reactions that would lead to a
collapse of the entire political project is a conundrum that has long
plagued the left. Farthing and Kohl depict the Morales administration as
a transitional stage that will lead to more profound changes. Even so,
disillusionment among Morales’ social movement base with his political
project continues to grow even as his personal popularity remains very
high.

In Evo’s Bolivia,
Farthing and Kohl engage in a probing analysis of these pressing issues
that are critical to the survival of our planet. The result is a
successful, thoughtful, and compelling book that is written in a fluid
and accessible style. The narrative is interspersed with interviews the
authors conducted across Bolivia. As a result, the book achieves an
admirable balance of providing an excellent entry point for those with
little background in Bolivia as well as key insights for scholars and
activists with a long history in the country.

***

Marc
Becker teaches Latin American history at Truman State University. He is
the author of Pachakutik: Indigenous movements and electoral politics
in Ecuador (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011) and Indians and
Leftists in the Making of Ecuador's Modern Indigenous Movements (Duke,
2008); co-editor with Kim Clark of Highland Indians and the State in
Modern Ecuador (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007); and editor and
translator with Harry Vanden of José Carlos Mariátegui: An Anthology
(New York: Monthly Review Press, 2011).